The field of the invention generally relates to appliances, and in particular to control consoles for use with such appliances.
In addition to making a variety of different models for sale under their own brand names, some appliance manufacturers also make appliances for other companies that sell them under different brand names. In many such instances, it is very important that the appliances with different brand names have market differentiation, even though they are mechanically the same or very similar. That is, for a number of reasons, it may be very important that the brands or models have substantially different appearances so that the consumers will not readily know that the different brands come from the same source or origin.
Appliances such as clothes washers, dryers, and ranges generally have substantially rectangular cabinets with laterally elongated top enclosures or control consoles that house the operator actuable controls. Typically, the rectangular cabinets appear very much the same, so it is common to attempt to obtain market differentiation by changing the appearance of the control consoles. Normally, a control console has either a separate or integral graphics panel, and it is a relatively easy matter to use a different graphics panel to provide some market differentiation. However, if the shapes of the consoles of the different brands are identical, they may still appear very similar if they are sitting next to each other on the showroom floor. Accordingly, some multi-brand manufacturers have used completely different design shapes or geometries for the consoles of different brands. This, however, increases the inventory parts lists and the associated costs of fabricating different parts.